Briefing

TAEN, SOUTH KOREA

The nation's worst oil spill blackens beaches

EASTER ISLAND, CHILE

Erosion endangers prehistoric stone heads

LIMA

Peru's ex-President gets six-year sentence

ALGIERS

Truck bombs near U.N. offices kill dozens

LONGMONT, COLO.

Ice storms pummel the central U.S.

CRETE

Illegal immigrants intercepted on cargo ship

THE MAP

A Downright Depressing Set of Rankings

Feeling down in the dumps? Move to South Dakota. In its new state-by-state rankings based on the prevalence and severity of depression, the nonprofit Mental Health America found that places like the Dakotas and Hawaii fared better in part because they have more psychiatrists and social workers per capita as well as more residents with health insurance. Says psychologist David Shern, the organization's president and CEO: "Access is the moral of this story."

EXPLAINER

A Sweet Spot for a Launch

NASA's shuttle Atlantis was scheduled for a mission to the International Space Station on Dec. 9, but a faulty fuel gauge caused the launch to be postponed until January at the earliest. If the gauge had been fixed quickly, could the delay have been avoided? No. Blame orbital mechanics.

PLAYING CATCH-UP Orbiting 200 miles above Earth at 17,500 m.p.h., the space station passes over Cape Canaveral, Fla., for just 5 min. each day. For the shuttle to catch up without wasting too much fuel, the timing has to be dead-on. STAYING IN LANE It takes 2 1/2 days to intercept the station. The shuttle is launched into a slightly lowerorbit. Like a runner on an inside track, it catches up to the station, fires its thrusters and edges up to the station's orbit for docking.

WHY WAIT UNTIL JANUARY? The shuttle impedes the station's movement when attached. At certain points in the year, this makes it difficult to capture solar energy or maintain temperature, factors NASA considers for launch timing.

LEXICON

rat spill

DEFINITION rat spil n. The environmental crisis caused by an influx of rats after the ship they were stowed on docks at port or sinks.

CONTEXT Much like an oil spill, rat spills can wreak havoc on delicate ecosystems and are a major problem for many far-flung islands. One of Alaska's western Aleutians was even named Rat Island after it was overrun by the critters following a shipwreck in the 1780s.

USAGE Because an invasion of rodents can devastate populations of ground-nesting seabirds, wildlife-refuge managers in Alaska have developed emergency-response plans to deal with rat spills. The Alaska board of game recently passed strict regulations requiring shippers to exterminate any rodents found on their vessels. Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on plans to eradicate the rats on Rat Island without harming the few native species that have survived the onslaught.

HEALTH NOTE

Ebola's Stealthy Return

IT'S BACK A new strain of Ebola has killed at least 30 people in Uganda, including several health-care workers who failed to take proper safety precautions when some patients did not exhibit such classic, horrific symptoms as bleeding from the eyes and ears. More than 100 people are thought to be infected, with hundreds more being monitored.

DELAYED REACTION? The outbreak began in August but was not confirmed until Nov. 29. Officials in Uganda deny they waited to publicly identify the highly contagious virus until after Queen Elizabeth II and 53 other heads of state had met in the capital, Kampala, on Nov. 23 for a Commonwealth summit.

ARTIFACT

City in Search of a Postmark

LOST IN THE MAIL Since the 2001 anthrax attacks, which killed two postal workers in Washington, the city's postmark itself has become endangered. Letters sent from the U.S. capital are increasingly displaying Maryland postmarks as more processing services are outsourced to the burbs.

SIGN OF THE TIMES Some see the vanishing seal as further marginalization of the city; a bill to grant it a vote in Congress failed this fall. D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has asked the D.C. postmaster to help revive the postmark.